Melody’s Echo Chamber is the name given to the work of Paris-based multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Melody Prochet. Possessing a penchant for wild-eyed psychedelia, homespun motorik rhythm and an effortless flair for the sort of melodic classicism redolent of chamber song, Prochet is at once both an aficionado of pop’s outer limits and off-kilter to its expectations.
With her smoky, sensual voice and romantic presence, Prochet embodies a distinctive kind of elegance and bold sense-of-self long associated with France’s more notable musical exports. But as much as her national identity runs through the fibre of the eleven tracks that make up Melody’s Echo Chamber, there’s worldliness at play too; a looking beyond the fringes of personal experience to trawl through Europe’s art pop lineage – kraut, space-rock, dream-pop, electronica – in a way that’s as much cinematic in its scope as it is musical.
The likes of Debussy and Spiritualized are seldom quoted in tandem when it comes to touch-points of an artist’s debut album but for Prochet, a classical music student of some twelve years, this sense of disparate influences makes a lot of sense. For all its blown-out boom and electronic wear-and-tear, a song like ‘Crystallized’ unfolds with a sweeping grace and poise that is deceptively complex, and the album is peppered with moments of melodic illumination that feel almost like movements in the way they frequently elevate the song up and away from the heavy, damaged break-beats and mesmeric bass loops that typically drive them.
The intriguing combination of more confrontational, roughshod instrumentation and stirring compositional scope present in Prochet’s work is in part attributable to the album’s origins. Predominantly recorded and mixed with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker in Perth and finished off solo in France, the collaboration, struck up after the two met on tour when Prochet was playing in a previous band, proved a perfect chemistry.
Recalling the devil-in-the-detail peculiarities and painterly eyes of primary influences Pram, Oliver Messiaen and Robert Wyatt in her dizzy kaleidoscope of cavernous psych-rock and ultra-vivid, hypnotic pop, Prochet’s debut album is a statement of delicate intricacy and grand vision alike – a perfect portal into the imagination and instinct of a unique young artist.
Tracklisting:
1. I Follow You
2. Crystallized
3. You Won’t Be Missing That Part Of Me
4. Some Time Alone, Alone
5. Bisou Magique
6. Endless Shore
7. Quand Vas Tu Rentrer?
8. Mount Hopeless
9. IsThatWhatYouSaid
10. Snowcapped Andes Crash
11. Be Proud Of Your Kids